November 26, 2008

And, thanks to Ologie - my agency home - for helping me put together a longer handbook / Q&A document on the topic. In it, you'll find great printable versions of the content from this series PLUS a lot more specific content on various uses of social media.

The Death of MySpaceThe use of “macro” communities — like Facebook and MySpace — will decrease as
adoption of semi-private “gated” communities grows.
These smaller communities will allow:

Deeper sharing

More relevant conversations

More personal experiences

Bridging Social and the Store
Mobile technologies will bring social media to physical experiences.

Scanning any bar code with your cell phone will pull up consumer reviews

Friends will broadly co-shop using tools as widely varied as wired dressing rooms and
interactive mirrors attached to online stores

Polarized, Passionate People
Social media will make it easier and easier for us to self-select into groups filled with
“people like us.” Savvy leaders will energize these “microsegments” and create powerful
emotional connections.
“Main Street” Customer Service
Consumers will increasingly expect personal, relevant experiences with the brands they
choose to do business with. The hallmarks of these experiences will be proactive problem
solving and dedicated points of connect — across multiple media.

November 25, 2008

The single biggest change is the end of the 1% rule.
The 1% rule is a widely shared behavioral theory that states that the number of people who
really create content on the Web represent only 1% of the people actually viewing the content.
It suggests that 99% of Internet users are just reading and watching. But the latest from
Forrester Research paints a very different picture of participation:

What else?

Bloggers are beating out
friends.
New research from Jupiter and
BuzzLogic shows that
people who read blogs are
more likely to take buying
advice from their favorite
bloggers than from their
friends.

Mass adoption of mass
communities.
Facebook has 120 million
active users, adding now at
a rate of about 10 million
per month. And no longer
is it just more of the same
— the fastest-growing
population is 35 and over.

November 20, 2008

Technology changes our expectations for behavior, our standards for etiquette. Social media is
no exception. The things that are important here are vastly different than the broadcast Web.
A few live-by rules:

November 19, 2008

From a great Wall Street Journal article about job swaps between
Google and P&G and the digital struggles of a consumer product company:

"The worst answer you can hear from an agency is, 'Don't worry, we have a group to handle interactive,' said David Bell, a Google consultant, during a session with some P&G job-swappers at Google's New York office. 'Interactive isn't a group, it's everybody's job,' said Mr. Bell, who himself formerly headed Interpublic Group, a major advertising-business holding company."

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by two students - Anna and Emily - from Auburn University
about a class they're taking in public relations. Their current
assignment: to interview an AdAge Power150 blogger about social media.
Here, I answer Anna's questions. Tomorrow, I'll share my interview with
Emily.

(Incidentally, I think I'll try the Flip camera instead of the Web cam
for the second interview. My head is not actually this enormous.)

November 17, 2008

There’s really just one essential thing to keep
in mind: It should provide value to the
customer and to the brand.
Looking at it another way, the circles could
read: true to the core of your brand and
new or unexpected.

Landing in that happy middle is tough to do.
And, it often has more to do with a
commitment than a campaign.

Too far to the left/Just information: Most corporate Web sites (after all, they were designed to
communicate specific information, not to be part of a social conversation).

Too far to the right/Just buzz: The Office Max elves. Remember those delightful holiday
dancers? People made over 100 million of those custom elves, helping Office Max win the
distinction of being the #2 holiday greeting site two years in a row.

The problem? It had nothing
to do with the brand. Despite the enormous number of impressions, same store sales dropped
7%.

In the happy middle/Real social:Zappos. You can’t talk about social media and not talk about
Zappos.

CEO Tony Hiesh has set out to do nothing less than create personal 1:1 relationships
between his team and people who use the social Web (and wear shoes). His thesis is that people
want to interact with people — not call scripts or advertisements. They want to feel a
connection to the places they spend their money and the people who help them do it.

So hundreds of Zappos customer services employees are on Twitter. Some solve real service
problems. Some just build relationships. Thirty to forty more are writing blogs. Getting the Zappos
culture out to the people who want to connect to it.

Test the concept with users of social media before you go live. This is one area where being a little tone deaf to the medium can have very negative results.

An Example: FexEx Launches a Package

FedEx wanted to participate in social media, but needed a relevant way to do it. So, they studied how people use the various tools, looking for a gap.

They found it on Facebook.

One of the limitations of Facebook is that you can’t attach a document or image to a message they way you can in email.

So, FedEx built an application called “Launch a Package” that met that need AND fit their core brand perfectly. The results were immediate: 100,000 installs in 48 hours, 1st branded app to make #1 on Facebook’s Most Active page, and 0ver 50% of users returning more than 10 times after install.